Sentence commuted

No, I haven't retired. I've just been taking a different route to work - through Hoboken instead of Penn Station - and I have to admit, the commute is far less interesting. But fear not: I have started a new blog that looks at where movie characters are today. It's the answer to the question you never asked: What ever happened after the movie was over?

If you can't get enough of me, I highly recommend it. http://movieepilogues.blogspot.com/

On board with a whiff

With the prospect of a four-day weekend thanks to Memorial Day, many people took Friday off. The trains this morning were pleasantly empty. However, that did not stop something odorific from happening to me on an otherwise beautiful Friday morning. In Orange a man sat down next to me, but I knew he was coming well before he sat down. No, I am not psychic. Through the power of smell, I sensed his imminent arrival. 

For some reason, after he had shaved this morning, he thought it a good idea to dunk his head in a large vat of aftershave. He then looked at himself in the mirror, said, "Lookin' good, sexy!" and walked to the train station. Once on the train, he stopped by the door to let every passenger slowly inhale his excellence before casually walking down the aisle, stopping occasionally to let those he passed take a nice, long whiff of his greatness. Seeing me, he turned into my seat and thought to himself, "This young man needs a pick-me-up. And my intense and splendid aroma is just the prescription he needs."

Little did he know that what I really needed was an Allegra. And his aftershave only made that need stronger.

On board with a national championship

Allow me to go off topic for a moment:


Franklin Street: The Celebration from The Daily Tar Heel on Vimeo.

And I will say this: taking the last train from NY home on a Monday night is an entirely different experience than taking a rush hour train. The train was almost empty save for a few people traveling alone, and I couldn't help but wonder what each of their stories were. Why were these people traveling from NY to NJ at 12:45? And the one guy who sneezed 45 times in a two minute span: why did you even leave your house?

On board with that stink

As an everyday user of public transportation, I have gotten used to smelling the most wretched odors imaginable. There are the smells of BO that permeate Penn Station. There is the strong stench of urine in the underpass at the Subway station at Spring St. And let's not forget the people who are very comfortable passing gas on crowded cars; God love 'em, they are unashamed.

But this morning I had a first. On the subway on the way to work this morning, a man came onboard holding his 3- or 4-year-old daughter, whose rear was near my head, and I got the unmistakable whiff of a soiled diaper.  The car was crowded, so she stayed by my nose until the next stop, when thankfully, dad moved closer to the door and I was allowed to breathe again. He got off at the stop before me, and I can only hope - for the other people of New York - that he changed that diaper soon after. She may have been small, but she did her part to make NYC public transportation one the smelliest in the world.

Rain rain, go away ... oh wait you did

I propose a moratorium on umbrella use when it is not raining.

Yesterday, on a morning that was dark and foggy - yet remarkably dry - there stood a woman on the platform of the train station holding a large, yellow umbrella. Holding it above her head, she took up a good three square feet of prime real estate - including the spot on the platform where I typically like to stand. What was most peculiar about this all, though, was that it was not raining. It had not rained for some time, in fact, and still she stood, isolated in her imaginary downpour. I stood next to her and stared for a while, my hands empty and yet still managing to stay dry.  After a few minutes, she realized that her umbrella was entirely gratuitous and put it down. 

I thought her ability to irritate me had passed, but after two solid minutes of fidgeting to tie up her umbrella, she popped a piece of chewing gum - mint I believe - into her mouth and chewed that stuff like a cow chowing on grass. There are few things that annoy me more than someone chewing with their mouth open, and this woman managed to make every other lip smacker I've ever met sound like a congregation of librarians. I swear I could hear her over the train as it barreled up the tracks. And this was with my headphones in. Maybe I should have gone to more concerts growing up. My hearing wouldn't be so sensitive, and I'd have more ticket stubs for my scrapbook.*

*There is no scrapbook.

Not on board at all

Some days the stars just align. I worked from home today because I had to visit the doctor today (nothing serious) and a series of unfortunate events transpired today that I was lucky enough to avoid. First, electric problems caused delays for all trains the morning, which, having had to meander around New York/Hoboken to get around this before, I can aver is awful.

Then around 3:00 I heard from coworkers that a fire alarm had sent everyone out of our building, though to be fair, it was a nice day to be outside. Naturally, I laughed and laughed at having missed all of this, which can only mean that tomorrow will be exponentially worse, and I should go ahead and plan on karmic retribution. Stupid karma.

On board, and keep walking

This is a public service announcement:

When boarding the train, walk to the center of the care before sitting. This will allow passengers boarding after you to find a seat and will result in a smoother flow of traffic. Sitting in the first available seat - when there are many others beyond it - will cause a logjam of passengers waiting behind you while you stand in the aisle waiting for someone to stand up and let you in.

Thank you for your attention.

On board with a stench

While taking the train into and from work each day has its drawbacks, there are definitely perks to riding during rush hour.  Typically, the people you ride with are impeccably groomed business men and women who are quiet and respectful of others.  Notice the word "typically."  Yesterday was anything but.

On the way into New York, we had to make an unscheduled stop and pick up a swarm of people in Newark because of a broken down train in front of us.  Naturally, this happened on a rare morning where I was able to sit in a three-person seat with just one other, normal-sized human.  The herd of people - waiting on the platform they were about 4-5 rows deep - pushed their way in, and I saw the typical (there's that word again) types find seats in front of me. 

And then I spotted him.  I large man, sloppily dressed, out of breath, and moving towards me. As soon as I saw him, I knew he would end up sitting next to me.  That is my luck; I attract fat dudes.

I let him into the middle seat, he took off his coat, and I smelled it.  This was B.O. on an order I am not accustomed. Walking in Penn Station and riding on the subway, where homeless people often reside for hours, you will smell something like this.  But an experienced commuter can avoid these smells; yesterday morning, I was pressed up against it like tootsie rolls in a pinata. And I prayed that someone would whack me free.

Naturally, I wondered how anyone who was ostensibly riding into the city for work could smell so bad, so early in the morning. Had he not showered? Had he worked up a sweat ... walking through the aisle of the train?  What was this large fellow up to at 7:00?  I decided to stop wondering and instead sit with my hand over my face, turned the other way, happily thinking back to times when I had experienced other questionable smells: Wading through liquid pig fat on Interstate 40 for a story? Not as bad.  Driving through Richmond where it wreaks of sulfur? A meadow of pleasantness.  Using the bathroom at any Bojangle's in America? I welcome a return visit. This man beat them all. Congratulations.  I hate you.

On board with nail clippings

I saw something today I never thought I'd see. The lady next to me on the subway this afternoon clipped her finger nails. On the subway. Next to me. (I repeated it to make sure you heard me.) When I say she sat next to me, I mean she was sitting on the bench next to me, with nothing separating us. And finger nails separating from fingers.

Part of me wanted to pretend that a clipping hit me in the face and start screaming. I would have sold it too: I'd cut my face to draw a little blood, produced fake tears, the whole nine yards. All of this would have culminated the only way it could: lawsuit. I'm thinking $4 million.

But to reiterate: woman on subway. Clipped nails. Next to me. Gross.

On board with rags

A typical morning rush hour commuter, if he or she is not resting with eyes closed, reads either the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal. These are the reading materials of choice, with an occasional Newark Star-Ledger thrown in for good measure. This morning, however, I sat between two people reading exciting alternatives: the man on my left was reading the classic Batman graphic novel, The Long Halloween, and the woman on my right was reading US Weekly or Star Crap or some horrible gossip magazine. Naturally, as I have read The Long Halloween, I was drawn to the gossip rag.

Now, I feel the need to dwell on one of the stories in the magazine because it smacks of hypocrisy, and the one thing that turns me off more than anything is hypocrisy. (In related news, I hate cheaters. Go Yankees!)  The story was on how Demi Moore stays young. It included a sidebar with seven tips from the star herself on how she stays young: Hydrate, moisturize, exfoliate, marry someone half your age, etc.  However, the story also included before and after photos showing the incredible plastic surgery she had last year.  

Now, I try to stay off of soap boxes because I find them slippery and they leave my shoes bubbly, but this smacks me as patently disingenuous and dishonest.  This would be like you saying the key to your good writing has been studying English in college and forcing yourself to write a little bit each day ... while leaving out the fact that you take large, unattributed portions of your essays from F. Scott Fitzgerald.  For some reason this made me really angry this morning. 

Maybe I'm just irritable because yet another baseball hero has taken my faith in humanity, chewed it up, and after 40 minutes in the bathroom, turned it into a steaming pile of broken promises and yesterday's corn chowder.*

*Full disclosure: This analogy is taken from F. Scott Fitzgerald's Tender is the Night.

Butch Cassidy is nothing without his Sundance Kid

Of course it would happen on the morning when the wind chill was -1.  -1 AMERICAN degrees.

Waiting for the train this morning, the disembodied voice of the friendly train station lady announced that all trains in and out of Penn Station were running 20-30 minutes behind. Thankfully, I was able to step into my train and escape the skin-punishing, bone-chilling cold at approximately the time NJ Transit promises in its train schedules. But, of course, after moving a few miles up the line, the conductor announced that the delays were worse than we had been led to believe. Apparently, due to a broken down train in the tunnel, there was but one track for all trains entering and leaving the major hub in Manhattan. 

In other words, bad news.

So, after we waiting for a while outside Newark, our conductor told us we were being re-routed to Hoboken. As you may recall, this had happened to me before, in reverse, last year, but I remain totally ignorant of the PATH train and their routes, so upon reaching Hoboken, I got on a train that took me near Penn Station and had to back-track back to my office. (I would learn later that this could have been a much shorter trip, but the PATH website was blissfully unhelpful.)

Oh, and I had to get out on Broadway and find my way back to Penn Station - and of course, since it was cold, I headed out the wrong way and had to walk more than I should have. 

The Highlight:

There was an irritating guy with a backpack - it's always backpacks - who continued to bump into me and a woman next to me on the PATH train. Oblivious to the natural law stating that two bodies cannot occupy the same space, he repeatedly beat us with his backpack, like the clumsy adolescent who is not in control of his newly-large body and bumps into walls and other things because he is not used to his hulking shoulders.  This guy, however, was just annoying.

At one point, the woman and I turned in towards one another to shoot him a dirty look. It was like something out of a sit-com: We turned at preciously the same time and turned back at the same time as well. I wanted so much to make eye contact and share that "If you punch him in the face, I'll punch him in the stomach" look, but she was too annoyed to have any fun on the ride. So alas, the man remained unpunched. Another missed opportunity in the annals of NY commuting.

On board with my furry friends

I've noticed this new middle-aged lady - let's call her Vick Furry* - that wears an expensive fur coat every morning, complemented by a wonderfully huge fur hat, like the ones worn by Soviets in spy movies. I mean, this thing is incredible. I find myself staring at it and wondering what waiting for the train with an animal on my head would be like. I think I would pretend it were still alive and talk to it. Because really there isn't much else to do but stand around and shiver.

*This is joke for comic book dorks. If you don't get it, you're probably cooler than me.

At any rate, hat or not, she inevitably gets into the train every morning in front of me. She has a buddy waiting for her, and so she stops right inside the door, he gets up to let her in, and I'm left waiting behind the Soviet ice princess and her boy toy. For those of you who have rushed to get into trains at rush hour, you know how precious few seats there are, and waiting behind someone while watching the rest of the car fill in the empty seats ... there just are not words for the frustration. Actually there are: I hate her.

I'm most certainly not a PETA sympathizer, but everything about this woman makes me want to scream. Keeping the line of people behind her waiting for her to de-animalize her entire body; flirting with all the old men around her; talking loudly while the rest of us on the train are reading newspapers or sleeping. Maybe I just need more sleep.

Stop looking at me, you loveless loser

Being the incredible husband that I am, I picked up some flowers for my wife on the way home from the train station yesterday. From the time I left the store until I got home 7 minutes later, people shot me looks. There was the guy in the car who looked at me, his face seeming to say, "What a loser. He bought flowers for someone. I only have to pull up in my awesome sports car and invite a woman to my whites-only country club and I am golden." Then there were the middle-aged women, whose husbands have long since given up on romance. They each shot me a smile as if to say, " If only a hip young man would buy me some purple flowers. My thighs ache with hope." All of this is to say, do not buy flowers and then walk with them for a couple of blocks. Drive.

All the news that's fit to recycle

I've grown accustomed to many aspects of my daily commute - fighting for a seat on the morning train, heavily armed police officers patrolling the subway and train station, women wearing half bottles of perfume, the homeless people in Penn Station - but there are just some things that still mystify me. Some things I never would have imagined growing up in my North Carolina hamlet. Namely, I routinely see grown men, men wearing suits and expensive overcoats, pulling newspapers out of the trashcan to read in Penn Station.

Now, I have nothing against recycling. And I am happy when people dispose of their newspapers rather than toss them on the ground or leave them on the seats of the train.  But are times really so bad that people cannot afford to buy a 50-cent newspaper? Are these investment bankers so hard up that they must rummage through public trash cans to read the latest bad economic news? (I guess in fairness I should say that these people usually take newspapers off the top of the trash heap, a la George eating the eclair from the trash can on Seinfeld. But I think I side with Jerry on this one: on top of the trash is still in the trash.)

So, ye readers, weep for the bankers, the day traders, the suited masses,

For those that so recently lived the modern lives of kings

Are themselves unable to feed their brains nor clothe their asses,

Whist heavens' angels, heavy hearted, beat their wings

Nevermore, nevermore.

A femme point of view

Greetings, transit anecdote enthusiasts. Since Phillip worked from home today, but I, his wife, did make the commute I thought it fitting to spice it up for you. I haven't commuted into the city on consecutive days since the summer of '07, but as of Monday, I'm making the hop four days a week. Here are some of my thoughts.

• Say you are on a relatively crowded train. You are sharing a "booth" with three passengers. One of the passengers takes her leave, leaving a side each to you and your fellow passenger. So, you breathe a little deeper, stretch your legs a little more. Which of the following would you then do?

a) move your things into the free seat next to you
b) stare inappropriately at the young lady across from you
c) rub your tongue over your teeth with your mouth open, making a sucking sound

For a sanity check, option a is perfectly acceptable and I have often taken that step myself. The other options, however, should not be exercised, a fact which the middle-aged man across from me clearly did not understand. It was the teeth sucking that really got to me.

• For those of you who do not partake in public transport on a regular basis, there is an art to maneuvering through a busy transit station. The choreography which keeps the feet a moving and traffic flowing relies on a general agreement of everyone involved to travel at a steady pace, with your eyes directly ahead. This alerts the other pedestrians as to your route, allowing for checks and reactions to avoid collisions. I would just like to state some basic rules that everyone should follow. I'm not asking for much, people.

1) do not read Twilight books while you are walking on a crowded subway platform. You know what, if you're a middle-aged woman, you should not be reading that in public anyway.
2) NEVER stop abruptly in the middle of traffic and turn around. This is ESPECIALLY true if you have luggage, which will be sent a swinging as you aim your moonface expression in the opposite direction.
3) You do not look cooler if you walk with a fake gimp, in the manner of, say, huggie bear. You just look ridiculous.
4) Pick your damn wheely luggage up so that you aren't dragging it behind you and taking people's shins out. My shins are especially offended when, thinking I've found an open spot to careen myself into, they are met with the harsh, off-putting obstacle of a rolling suitcase.
5) Just a general rule for the subway. Always yield to ladies in heels. They need the seat more than you if you're wearing anything but a pair of heels.

I think Phillip would especially agree with that last point. I know he has problems with his stilettos as well. I'm not as funny, but maybe I get points for irascibility?

Yours, eggette

Rats! (or: Welcome back to work!)

Having been out of the state for two weeks, I had a long period of adjustment on my commute this morning. Essentially, I forgot everything that makes the journey from New Jersey to New York so quaint:

• Walking to the train station in the bitter cold as a fierce northern wind blows snot loose in my nose (I apologize; there was no better way to say that)
  
• The mad rush to get inside the train so you can find a seat
  
• Large men sitting with their legs spread far apart, taking up as much of my seat as they feel comfortable doing (spoiler alert: it's a lot)
  
• The conductor who greets me every morning with "Good morning! All tickets display!" providing a sentence I still cannot diagram correctly.
  

And best of all: the rats scurrying along the subway tracks.  This morning I saw a rat that at first did not appear to have a tail. Luckily, I had time to study him and found that he did in fact have a tail. So much the better.

And thus enters 2009. Welcome back!